Another flaw in the theory is that it places a settlement of Britons in Ireland at the sort of time when the Romans are reporting the traffic was very much flowing the other way.

The Romans reported Irish raids, not settlement.* St Patrick's life is proof that Britons were snatched and taken as slaves to Ireland. St Patrick's letter to Coroticus proves raiding and slave-taking in the other direction as well. Irish settlement in Dyfed seems to have begun as Roman deisi taken on by the Romans as federates to protect the area from raiding by other Irish. It does not appear to have been large-scale.

[added] * Of course raids could lead to settlement, once the Romans removed their protection, as with the Angles and Saxons.

The recent Myres study found M222, though in a small amount, in Malmö in Sweden (2 out of 139, or 1.4%), as I pointed out in the R1b in Sweden thread. I don't believe they found any in Denmark, though those were smaller samples. I offer no opinion how or when M222 got to Sweden. There are just too many possible explanations.

I've got both of the first two above. Fournier is the one guy from France I was citing below (from Marans.) Marans isn't in Normandy but it is at least in the right half of France.

Don't trust the geographic origin just because someone has joined a geographic project. Galyean N5613 / PZBYY is not necessarily French. His Ysearch record says he thinks his MDKA is from England but he has no proof.

Vigneau is not deep clade tested and 12 markers is hardly worth evaluating.

I don't see any strong links of M222 to Normandy or Scandinavia. I actually don't see any strong links to Germany either, but at least there are the four guys from our DNA projects from Germany and the Myres study also found one.

Mike-We know M222 has a distribution focussed on NW Ireland and SW Scotland. However, you have mentioned that the English M222 has a much higher variance. Do we know anything about the distribution of M222 in England? Obviously a direct link between Germany and NW Ireland/SW Scotland is pretty geographically improbable but southern or eastern England would provide an intermediate point.

Mike-We know M222 has a distribution focussed on NW Ireland and SW Scotland. However, you have mentioned that the English M222 has a much higher variance. Do we know anything about the distribution of M222 in England? Obviously a direct link between Germany and NW Ireland/SW Scotland is pretty geographically improbable but southern or eastern England would provide an intermediate point.

Alan, this is from reply #42 below. Here are the surnames and the actual MKDA locations for the English M222 MDKA's. They look scattered across England. They don't appear "pooled" on the border with Scotland. In total, there are 18 haplotypes and their variance is significantly higher in England.

Going back to Jean M's suppositions on the La Tene, did the La Tene hit one part of England harder than another? or did Hallstatt?

Mike-We know M222 has a distribution focussed on NW Ireland and SW Scotland. However, you have mentioned that the English M222 has a much higher variance. Do we know anything about the distribution of M222 in England? Obviously a direct link between Germany and NW Ireland/SW Scotland is pretty geographically improbable but southern or eastern England would provide an intermediate point.

Alan, this is from reply #42 below. Here are the surnames and the actual MKDA locations for the English M222 MDKA's. They look scattered across England. They don't appear "pooled" on the border with Scotland. In total, there are 18 haplotypes and their variance is significantly higher in England.

Going back to Jean M's suppositions on the La Tene, did the La Tene hit one part of England harder than another? or did Hallstatt?

It is hard to see a pattern in the English ones. Perhaps the south-east seems underrepresented given considerations of populations size although migration patters to the Americas may need to be borne in mind.

As for La Tene and its impact in England, that is a very tricky thing to define. Probably people would traditionally think the south and also the area where the Parisi were based on the east coast in the north are the areas of deepest influence. However, ideas about La Tene influence are pretty vague and subject to almost cyclical change. The influence was spread everywhere to some degree but often seems a shallow influence. In the east of Scotland La Tene seems very scarce in the north (other than a very late flourish) and strongest in the south (south of Stirling). There are scattered trinkets up the west found in excavations at Broch's etc but the incredible intensity of modern research excavation of the impressive stone-built structures in the Orkneys and Hebrides compared to other areas has probably completely distorted the picture. A few decades back it was normal to link Irish La Tene material with Northern England but in later times this was to a large degree questioned.

Mike-We know M222 has a distribution focussed on NW Ireland and SW Scotland. However, you have mentioned that the English M222 has a much higher variance. Do we know anything about the distribution of M222 in England? Obviously a direct link between Germany and NW Ireland/SW Scotland is pretty geographically improbable but southern or eastern England would provide an intermediate point.

It is hard to see a pattern in the English ones. ..... I think the pattern of M222 is Ireland is not a very good match for La Tene. There is an overlap but they are pretty different and its a poor correlation over all.

Thanks.How about Hallstatt? Did have a significant influence across England or was it restricted to one area? Same questions for Ireland and Scotland.

Mike-We know M222 has a distribution focussed on NW Ireland and SW Scotland. However, you have mentioned that the English M222 has a much higher variance. Do we know anything about the distribution of M222 in England? Obviously a direct link between Germany and NW Ireland/SW Scotland is pretty geographically improbable but southern or eastern England would provide an intermediate point.

It is hard to see a pattern in the English ones. ..... I think the pattern of M222 is Ireland is not a very good match for La Tene. There is an overlap but they are pretty different and its a poor correlation over all.

Thanks.How about Hallstatt? Did have a significant influence across England or was it restricted to one area? Same questions for Ireland and Scotland.

In Britain and Ireland Hallstatt would not be seen as much more than contact and influence on metalwork. Generally when influence does not extend beyond metalwork into settlement types, mundane domestic artefiacts, burial traditions etc it is easier to interpret as contact and influence than migration. If the bar of evidence for migration was lowered to the level that influences on metalwork is all that is required to infer migration then you could pretty well argue anything you want. In general, most people feel that more than metalwork influence is needed to infer significant migration. Hallstatt C metalwork objects are known to be found in association with native metalwork in a way that suggests it is simply the latest trinket that the local bronze workers were copying and adding to their repetoire. Certainly the idea of waves of Celts in the Hallstatt and then La Tene period is a very out of date idea.

Hallstatt is actually even weaker than La Tene as a hypothetical migration phase because at least La Tene seems to see a rather sharp change in metalworking tradition with little evidence of older technological traditions. Well that is certainly true in Ireland. However also in Ireland almost everything other than the metalwork has a strong feel of Bronze Age continuity or peculiarly Irish traditions with no parallels anywhere else.. Even the monuments that the La Tene metalwork is found in like the 'royal sites' and the cremation barrows are peculiarly Irish in the case of the former and very suggestive of Bronze Age continuity in the case of the latter. If the La Tene metalwork in Ireland represents intrusion then it was on a small scale and they went native very quickly in many ways.

Certainly I think the idea that Hallstatt and La Tene are the major cause of the spread of the Celtic languages into the British Isles is supported by very few people these days and that is because in so much of the British Isles the influences of the continental Hallstatt and La Tene cultures did appear to go beyond metalwork. Indeed the whole popularity of the Atlantic Celts idea is based on this. However, I think it is an irrational bit of revisionism because the Atlantic Bronze Age is even more wooly a concept and it suffers every bit as much as the old La Tene and Hallstatt ideas from being almost totally based on metalwork and military artefacts with no evidence of deeper degrees of influence on settlement, burial etc.

.... We have plenty of confirmed M222 long haplotypes from Ireland and Scotland so I say this with confidence the variance, and therefore probably the age, of Ireland and Scotland is pretty much equal. You can also look at Scotland and Ireland as one and compare them to Scotland and Ireland individually and it's still all about the same. The implication is that the M222 people in Ireland and Scotland were basically the same people at the time of their expansions there..... I think data from England is limited as I have only 18 haplotypes from England. However, the amount of difference is significant. As I've gone from 12 to 15 haplotypes and now to 18, it's holding steady at 20 to 50% higher variance fom England. ....

Here is an update. I've now got 23 M222 people with MDKA's in England, up from 18. There is still only one from France but a couple more from Germany have appeared. Here are the counts of people that I have from the DNA projects.England ___ 23Ireland ___ 286Scotland __ 66Germany ___ 6

Variance summary:

1. Ireland, Scotland and Ireland+Scotland are still all pretty much the same variance.

2. Curiously, Germany also has almost exactly the same variance as Ireland. Keep in mind this is a very limited sample.

3. England still has the highest variance, running from 17% to 45% greater than Ireland, et al.

I traveled from Dusseldorf to Munich over the weekend and stopped over in Wurzburg, capital of Franconia and visited the old city. The old bridge has a wonderful set of statues of founding fathers and notables. Of the 12 statues three (25%) were of Irish missionaries, Killian, Kolonat and Totnat, who converted the Franks to Christianity in 686.I have posted pictures of all three against the backdrop of fortress Marianberg the site of a Celtic settlement from 3,000 Years ago.

Killian and his companions were probably M222 as they were kin of Columbanus and by association Niall and came from a hotspot of M222, Cloghar. They were followed by many students and monks in the following centuries including one of my ancestors kin who studied for a doctorate at the Hiberno Scots school of St Jacob (and later at the University of Prague) in the 13thC. There are many other Hiberno Scots abbeys, monasteries and schools (Schottenklöster) such as this in Bavaria. It proves that there was an established infrastructure of exchange between the Isles and continental Europe) during the 1,000 year Holy roman Empire and possible before. I often wondered if there were exchange networks between the earlier Celtic settlements and their far dispersed settlements on the periphery of Europe. It could go some way to explain the small amount of M222 in Bavaria.It is also interesting that many of these Celtic missions were situated on the sites of ancient Celtic settlements.

(Scotch Monasteries).A name applied to the monastic foundations of Irish and Scotch missionaries on the European continent, particularly to the Scotch Benedictine monasteries in Germany, which in the beginning of the thirteenth century were combined into one congregation whose abbot-general was the Abbot of the monastery of St. James at Ratisbon. The first Schottenklöster of which we have any knowledge was Säckingen in Baden, founded by the Irish missionary, St. Fridolin, towards the end of the fifth century. The same missionary is said to have founded a Schottenklöster at Constance. A century later St. Columbanus arrived on the continent with twelve companions and founded Annegray, Luxeuil, and Fontaines in France, Bobbio in Italy. During the seventh century the disciples of Columbanus and other Irish and Scotch missionaries founded a long list of monasteries in what is now France, Germany, Belgium, and Switzerland. The best known are: St. Gall in Switzerland, Disibodenberg in the Rhine Palatinate, St. Paul's at Besançon, Lure and Cusance in the Diocese of Besançon, Beze in the Diocese of Langres, Remiremont and Moyenmoutier in the Diocese of Toul, Fosses in the Diocese of Liège, Mont-St-Michel at Peronne, Ebersmunster in Lower Alsace, St. Martin at Cologne. The rule of St. Columbanus, which was originally followed in most of these monasteries, was soon superseded by that of St. Benedict. Later Irish missionaries founded Honau in Baden (about 721), Murbach in Upper Alsace (about 727), Altomunster in Upper Bavaria (about 749), while other Irish and Scotch monks restored St-Michel in Thiérache (940), Walsort near Namur (945), and, at Cologne, the Monasteries of St. Clement (about 953), St. Martin (about 980), St. Symphorian (about 990), and St. Pantaléon (1042). Towards the end of the eleventh and in the twelfth century, a number of Schottenklöster, intended for Scotch and Irish monks exclusively, sprang up in Germany. About 1072, three Scotch monks, Marian, John, and Candidus, took up their abode at the little Church of Weih-St-Peter at Ratisbon. Their number soon increased and a larger monastery was built for them (about 1090) by Burgrave Otto of Ratisbon and his brother Henry. This became the famous Scotch Monastery of St. Jacob at Ratisbon, the mother-house of a series of other Schottenklöster. It founded the Abbeys of St. Jacob at Würzburg (about 1134), St. Aegidius at Nuremberg (1140), St. Jacob at Constance (1142), Our Blessed Lady at Vienna (1158), St. Nicolas at Memmingen (1168), Holy Cross at Eichstätt (1194), and the Priory of Kelheim (1231). These, together with the Abbey of St. Jacob at Erfurt (1036), and the Priory of Weih-St-Peter at Ratisbon formed the famous congregation of the German Schottenklöster which was erected by Innocent III in 1215, with the Abbot of St. Jacob at Ratisbon as abbot-general. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries most of these monasteries were on the decline, partly for want of Scotch or Irish monks, partly on account of great laxity of discipline and financial difficulties. In consequence, the abbeys of Nuremberg and Vienna were withdrawn from the Scotch congregation and repeopled by German monks in 1418. The Abbey of St. Jacob Würzburg was left without any monks after the death of Abbot Philip in 1497. It was then repeopled by German monks and in 1506 joined the congregation of Bursfeld. In 1595, however, it was restored to the Scotch congregation and continued to be occupied by Scotch monks until its suppression in 1803. The abbey of Constance began to decline in the first half of the fifteenth century and was suppressed in 1530. That of Memmingen also disappeared during the early period of the Protestant Reformation. The Abbey of Holy Cross at Eichstätt seems to have ceased early in the fourteenth century. In consequence of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland many Scotch Benedictines left their country and took refuge in the Schottenklöster of Germany during the sixteenth century. The Scotch monasteries in Ratisbon, Erfurt, and Würzburg again began to flourish temporarily, but all endeavors to regain the monasteries of Nuremberg, Vienna, and Constance for monks of Scotch nationality were useless. In 1692 Abbot Placidus Flemming of Ratisbon reorganized the Scotch congregation which now comprised the monasteries of Ratisbon, Erfurt, and Würzburg, the only remaining Schottenklöster in Germany. He also erected a seminary in connection with the monastery at Ratisbon. But the forced secularization of monasteries in 1803 put an end to the Scotch abbeys of Erfurt and Würzburg, leaving St. Jacob's at Ratisbon as the only surviving Schottenklöster in Germany. Though since 1827 this monastery was again permitted to accept novices, the number of its monks dwindled down to two capitulars in 1862. There being no hope of any increase, Pius IX suppressed this last Schottenklöster in his brief of 2 September, 1862. Its revenues were distributed between the diocesan seminary of Ratisbon and the Scotch College at Rome.

No, I don't wish to discuss the possibility of a Bavarian origin for M222, but if M222 could be Bavarian, then it's gong to be hard to put the origin of DF23 in the Isles. It will then be especially hard to put DF49's origin in the Isles.

Remember, a German result represents a higher number than an Isles result. Alan can tell us how much a German result is worth as compared to a French result, but it will difintely be worth much more than an Isles result.

In the last few weekends I visited Salzburg, St Gallen, Lake Constance, Reiceneau as well as Hallstatt. What impressed me the most was the sheer importance of these places and others in the reconstruction of civilisation in Europe. All of them had strong connections with the Celts and Ireland and had constant bi directional traffic over a period of 1,000 years.

Miles, dig it up! but please start another topic if you want to talk about M222 and Bavaria. Please no general implications of associating topics and posters. Dig up the specifics you want to, that's fine.

No, I don't wish to discuss the possibility of a Bavarian origin for M222, but if M222 could be Bavarian, then it's gong to be hard to put the origin of DF23 in the Isles. It will then be especially hard to put DF49's origin in the Isles....

You said you don't want to discuss, but you brought it up today in another thread.

Why bring up an old thread if you do want to discuss it?

Here's what I don't like. You said that I "completely bought into the idea." That is misleading. I think the odds are low that M222 is from Bavaria. I don't think it is impossible. That hardly means I've "completely bought in".

Do you have something specific to say when you bring stuff like this up or are you whining about a single issue you are concerned about? Is this what is bothering you? Do you have a predisposed notion that M222, DF23 and DF49 have to be from the Isles?

Miles, dig it up! but please start another topic if you want to talk about M222 and Bavaria. Please no general implications of associating topics and posters. Dig up the specifics you want to, that's fine.

No, I don't wish to discuss the possibility of a Bavarian origin for M222, but if M222 could be Bavarian, then it's gong to be hard to put the origin of DF23 in the Isles. It will then be especially hard to put DF49's origin in the Isles....

You said you don't want to discuss, but you brought it up today in another thread.

Why bring up an old thread if you do want to discuss it?

Here's what I don't like. You said that I "completely bought into the idea." That is misleading. I think the odds are low that M222 is from Bavaria. I don't think it is impossible. That hardly means I've "completely bought in".

Do you have something specific to say when you bring stuff like this up or are you whining about a single issue you are concerned about? Is this what is bothering you? Do you have a predisposed notion that M222, DF23 and DF49 have to be from the Isles?

.... then it's gong to be hard to put the origin of DF23 in the Isles. It will then be especially hard to put DF49's origin in the Isles. ...

Wow! I didn't say "you completely bought into the idea".... I said, "In an old thread about M222 being a La Tene marker, it seemed that you and others completely bought the idea", only "seemed".

I brought this Bavaria/M222 thread back up because it dealt with the M222/La Tene stuff I was posting about. It just "seems" to me that if the origin of M222 may be Continental and a La Tene Marker, then DF23 and DF49 would almost certainly be considered to be La Tene Markers or pre-La Tene Markers.

I have no predisposed opinion, but after all that I have read about the origin of M222 by you and others, it appears most likely to me that DF49, the grandfather of M222, would be Continental. Considering that we have several DF23 results from France and mine from Italy, and that each results equals at least a hundred or so Isles results, then it's looking like DF23 seems Continental as well.

Plus, no one seems to be able to show any archaeological evidence (pots, pans, artwork...) that there was movement from the Isles to the Continent. La Tene is evidence of movement from the Continent to the Isles. What is the evidence of any movement that would have brought M222, DF23, or DF49 from the Isles to the Continent?

EDIT: I thought we weren't supposed to get personal on here. It seems that what has been written is angry and accusative toward me.Plus, it seems that no matter how much I write about DF49, DF23, M222 being Continental, I get accused of saying the exact opposite. I clearly do not believe that DF49 is from the Isles and I know that my DF23 is from Italy, so unless someone can show which culture brought my DF23 line got from Ireland to Italy, it must stand as it is.

EDIT: I thought we weren't supposed to get personal on here. It seems that what has been written is angry and accusative toward me.

Why are you attributing anger to me? I'm not using all caps or calling you names or anything like that.

If someone says something misleading about someone else, which you did about me, I have every right to say so.

Out of sensitivty and consideration, I'll change the title of the thread so you can use more appropriately for topics you "seem" to post about. (I think I can change the title - I'll try.) I'm not even going to use the word "British Isles", just "Isles."